Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method for depiction of medical imaging data, as well as a medical imaging apparatus and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that implements such a method.
Description of the Prior Art
Usually medical imaging data will be recorded by means of a medical imaging apparatus so as to represent anatomical structures and/or functional processes of the body of an examination object. The examination object can be a patient, a healthy test subject, an animal or a phantom.
During the acquisition of the medical imaging data, breathing movement of the examination object usually occurs. This breathing of the examination object leads to a movement of the examination object and therefore can lead to an undesired alteration of the acquired medical imaging data. For example, it is possible for movement artifacts to occur in the acquired medical imaging data. The quality of the acquired medical imaging data also can be reduced by the movement. Known image artifacts in the example of computed tomography imaging here are a blurring of the acquired image data as a result of the movement of the anatomy of the examination object. An irregularity in the breathing of the examination object also can lead to artifacts in the medical imaging data.
Taking account of the breathing of the examination object is of great importance during the acquisition of a time series consisting of medical imaging data, for example four-dimensional (4D) computed tomography image data or magnetic resonance image data. The importance is further increased if the computed tomography image data or the magnetic resonance image data are to be used for the planning of irradiation of the examination object by a radiation therapy device.
The practice of correlating the acquisition of the time series of the medical imaging data with the breathing of an examination object is known in such cases. This enables different image datasets of the time series of the medical imaging data to be acquired at specific points in time during an average breathing cycle of the examination object. The specific points in time in such cases can be selected on the basis of an amplitude and/or an elapsed time and/or a phase of the breathing cycle of the examination object.